Saint Basil the Great (ca. 330-379), one of the Fathers
of the Eastern Church, had been a monk prior to his appointment
as archbishop of Cesarea in Cappadocia. During that experience,
he wrote several ascetic works that he later brought together in
two collections: Regula Major and Regula Brevior. According to
St. Basil, the life of a monastic community should be founded on
two spiritual principles: obedience to the Abbot and charity
among the monks, binding each to his brothers. His precepts
strongly influenced monasticism in the East. Byzantine-Greek
monastic piety in Italy is inspired by other sources as well as
St. Basil’s teachings, from the Desert Fathers to St. Theodore
of Studion, hegumen of the famous Studion Monastery in
Constantinople. By the beginning of the 13th century the Church
of Rome, which had regained ecclesial jurisdiction over the
territory conquered by the Normans in southern Italy, was
defining all Byzantine-Greek monks in Italy as followers of St.
Basil and calling them Basilian Monks. This was the start of a
process that led, in 1579, with Pope Gregory XIII's Constitution
Benedictus Dominus, to the foundation of the Congregation
of Basilian Monks. Byzantine monasticism in Italy thus received the
legal status of an Order, and the abbot of individual
monasteries in the South of Italy, no longer autonomous, were
placed thenceforth under the direction of an Abbot General.

WHY BE A BASILIAN MONK?

When the voice of God
reaches us, and we say our “Here I am!” to the One who calls the
stars by name, a process of dying and rising begins in our lives and
we become “different” because we are swept up into the plan of God.

Every human being, for the very fact that he comes to life, is
“called” by God's goodness to become a precious and unique member of
the Body of Jesus Christ and to enjoy full adoption in God's sonship.
Among those who are baptized, the Lord calls some of them to follow
him more closely with a life - long consecration - this is the
peculiar characteristic of a monk from the earliest times of
Christian Church history.

Thus the
Typikòn (Holy Rule) of our monastery says:

“...Among the
disciples who are in the world, but not of the world, a monk is the
one who answers God's call inviting him to follow Him in solitude in
the desert to speak to his heart. The monk witnesses a love that is
marked in a special way by the unconditionable offer of his whole
life and by the eschatological expectation: this expectation
nourishes him by hope and faith. Therefore, a monk’s life seems like
that of the angels, as the Patristic and liturgical tradition says:
like an angel, the monk, in full subjection to the Spirit, places
himself in the complete service of God, even if he is conscious of
his weakness.

This exclusive role is well manifested in the
special fecundity of the monastic testimony. Tradition has properly
understood the meaning of the monastic habit, attributing it to the
Apostles themselves. Above all the monk becomes a new creature,
according to the models offered by God’s Mother, St. John The Baptist,
St. Mary of Bethany and the disciple Jesus loved. According to this view
tradition has long seen in the monastic profession a “second baptism”,
the mark of which is the new name a monk is given at the moment he
offers himself to God.

Monastic life is therefore Christian life in its
radicality renouncing created things, despite of their goodness, in
order to follow poverty, obedience and chastity. The peculiar signs of a
monk are prayer, which manifests either the expectation of God’s coming
or the answer to the Word received, meditated and “ruminated” upon; the
pressing invitation to conversion; the purification of the heart through
the fight against “evil thoughts”, humility, obedience, poverty,
chastity, meditation on the precariousness of life, compunction,
renouncing oneself, grief for one’s sins and tears flowing out of grief.
Monastic life is also Christian life accomplished in its radicality, not
as a condition apart, typical only of a kind of Christians, but as a
reference point for all the baptized”.

Our ascetic
life, as Basilian Monks of Byzantine-Greek rite, is based on the
integral observance of the Holy Gospel according to the spirituality
of the Greek Saints Fathers Basil the Great, Theodore of Studion,
Maxim the Confessor, John of the Climax, transmitted to us
especially by our Holy Founders Nilus and Bartholomew.

Our days are organized by the liturgical celebrations and work,
manual or intellectual, for each monk which tries to facilitate to
everyone the realization of the personal divine project, taking into
account the inborn qualities, spiritual attractions and physical
resistance of somebody, always under obedience to the Superiors and
the monastic tradition.

Our main activities are:

Liturgy, Prayers and Spiritual Direction

Monastic Library open to the public

Publications of periodicals and books

Center for the restoration of old books

Monastic Museum

Cultivation of the earth

The service for the Unity of Christians, in particular between
Orthodox and Catholics, is our typical commitment. First of all, we
contribute to the dialogue between the sister Churches with daily
effort in the conversion , penance, the ascent in the prayer,
animated from the desire to the realization of the prayer of Jesus
to the Father “may they all be one”
(John. 17:21).

In such dimension of memory, testimony and service to the Christian
Unity, the Exarchic Monastery of Blessed Mother of God at the
Grottaferrata represents a meeting center for the ecumenical
dialogue between East and West. For the good result of this
important scope we, as Basilian Monks, don’t stop to plead for the
illumination of the Holy Spirit and the particular intercession of
the Blessed Mother of God Hodigitria.

“For the grace of God we are gathered in the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ, that our proposals have an only and same aim: the
life lived in piety”St. Basil the Great

“The monk has of sight only God, he only has desire of God,
and he is only taken care of God, he means to only serve God
and, living in peace with God, he becomes cause of peace for the
others”St. Theodore of Studion

“The monk is an angel and his own work is mercy, peace and
sacrifice of praise”St. Nilus founder

If in your heart you feel Jesus’ voice calling you to follow him,
then respond generously to him with your “here I am”.
The Basilian monastic life is a life of total consecration to God,
open to the necessities of brethren, for the good of the Church and
of humanity.
No obstacle should frighten you,
but with courage, come and stay with us for some time.
Please, contact us: “Come and see!”

Men desiring to learn more about the Basilian Monks of
Grottaferrata
may request a brochure and/or a vocation video -